Monthly Archives: October 2016

Join us on for Trick-or-Treating at Vista House on Halloween from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm! Details below.

October at the Vista House is always an interesting month . . .

From the shift in weather and beginning of the winter winds, to the outside weather (rain) making its way inside, to the shorter hours that the building is open, everything changes. And this last change, being closed more often to the public, means that the local “residents” of Vista House have more time to be in their building alone. Besides the mice, one of these local residents is (I believe) the ghost of the building’s architect, Edgar M. Lazarus.

Who resides at Vista House when all of the visitors go home?

Many staff who have worked in Vista House late night in the fall have reported feeling the presence of Lazarus. I have felt it before, too. However, I have never been scared of it. It is a nice, almost nurturing, presence to me. I feel that he is just there watching over his building. Happy that we are there, too, keeping watch and taking care—which is why I think I don’t find it scary. If I was causing damage at Vista House, it might be a different story.

One of the ways Edgar Lazarus makes himself known (other than just the “feeling” that he is there) is by playing with the elevator or “lift.” The lift is situated in the basement level of Vista House—volunteers in the rotunda level push toggles and buttons to raise and lower the lift. The control box at the main level desk is the only way to operate the lift. That said, I have had times when the lift is completely powered off, I am in the building by myself in the hallway in the basement when the lift door will start to open and close. Or times when I’m upstairs and can hear the lift door opening and closing even though I can see with my own eyes that no one’s hands are on the control. At times, it is just the outside door opening and closing; at other times, both the inside and outside door start opening and closing.

Vista House architect, Edgar M. Lazarus.

I have always attributed this lift movement to Lazarus. When the renovations were made on Vista House in 2004, we kept everything original (or at least as originally designed) EXCEPT the addition of the ADA elevator or “lift.” This was the only “modern” addition to the building. I do not think that Lazarus is upset by the lift, more than he is interested in it. I think Lazarus, being an architect with a quizzical mind, is intrigued by the lift—curious about how it works—and that he is simply playing with it.

I had always attributed the change in the temperature/weather as the sign that strange-ness was coming to Vista House. However, upon further research, I recently found out that Edgar M. Lazarus died on October 2, 1939 after a bitter dispute over his fees for the design and construction of Vista House.

Is it just a coincidence that Vista House’s ghost-play starts in October?

Or does the spirit of Edgar M. Lazarus begin making his rounds each year on the day he died, taking up residence in Vista House—the building he is best known for and one he felt he was never fully paid for?

(Special thanks to Ranger Mo Czinger for this ghostly account.)

Vista House will be open for trick-or-treating from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm on Halloween evening. Park Rangers will be passing out candy. The store, espresso bar, and balcony will be closed. The event will be cancelled if the wind gusts exceed 50 mph: Wind at Crown Point’s Vista House